If you think you are not harming anyone by your actions, you are wrong. You are very likely hurting not only yourself, and cheating yourself out of becoming the best nurse you can be, you are also harming your entire class, and very likely those who follow behind you. The consequences of cheating do affect the entire class, especially those students who put as much effort into studying for an exam, as you do figuring out a supposed easy way to pass. It creates an atmosphere on exam days that is hostile, which increases the anxiety of the entire class, and is especially harmful to those who already have test anxiety. The increase in anxiety causes those who studied hard to not perform as well as usual, or even improve significantly due to fear of being labeled a cheater. It also punishes those who worked hard, but are no longer allowed to learn from their mistakes due to not longer being able to review exams.
Basically cheaters suck, and it sucks being punished for the actions of another!
Signed,
Frustrated Nursing Student who is working her bum off to become a great nurse!
That's sad, I don't know why people do that to themselves, they don't seem to realize how much they are hurting their own education. I don't know how someone could even cheat on the TEAS though. You can't even bring anything in with you, or even leave the room to go to the bathroom! (or at least that's how mine was: no food, no drinks, no bathroom breaks. once you're in you don't leave until you're done). I don't get why you would even want to go to nursing school if you would have to put that much effort into cheating.
I think the hardest part is that it is very difficult to prove cheating occurred. Suspicion & hearsay don't hold up or allow the instructor to take action.
I've heard rumors that particular people in our program are cheating. I can see with my own eyes how much they struggle in skills and can't answer questions in clinicals.
There's nothing I can personally do about it. I cringe thinking of the (lack of proper) care their patients receive. Thank goodness they can't pass meds without the instructor present.
And as much as I hear "well, they won't pass the NCLEX", all they have to do is take one of those NCLEX prep courses where they guarantee you pass or you get your money back. I see nurses at the hospital that make you think "how did you get your license?" and it scares me.
I work my tail off for my grades and I take my education very seriously. To see people take short cuts and act like they're above the rules really aggravates me. I worry for patient safety!!!
There were cheaters in my program too. There were cheaters in my biology class, general chemistry class, and organic chemistry class. People who take back exams from former students and memorize the questions, take the test with their phone in their laps, sit in groups and find sneaky ways of communicating to one another throughout the test. Maybe it was wrong of me to do so, but I would sometimes look around the class to see how many of my student colleagues were eyeballing their neighbors' tests.
What's bad is that a LOT of people get away with it. What's worse is they notice their "skill" at it during fundamental coursework and keep going. What's worst of all is their falsely inflated cheat-GPAs get them into programs and opportunities that regular, study-hard-and-hope-for-the-best people might be deferred from.
I'm going to risk sounding highly unethical here, but this begs the question: if a lot/sometimes most of your proficiency in a career path is contingent on experience and on-the-job education, why NOT cheat in school and boost your stats (GPA, resume, better programs)?
I'll lay a lot of this at the feet of the instructors... multiple choice tests are absurdly easy to cheat on, particularly if they don't have different versions within a class.
A well-written test, that requires answers written out long-hand, is much harder to cheat on.
I agree about cheaters. They do the whole nursing career a disservice. They are also a threat to the patients. More then once in my career I have seen the absolute panic in their eyes. One evening stands out in my mind. I was working 3-11 shift and there was no supervisor. All of a sudden I was being paged to another floor; I went to help a fellow nurse. When I got there the nurse was waving a suction catheter around, yelling that she forgot how to suction a tracheotomy. The patient was pale and scared. I took the catheter and got her out of the room, explained to the patient what I was to do,got a clean catheter hooked it up and suctioned him. This is what Cheaters do. I will never forget the look on that man's face.
I agree about cheaters. They do the whole nursing career a disservice. They are also a threat to the patients. More then once in my career I have seen the absolute panic in their eyes. One evening stands out in my mind. I was working 3-11 shift and there was no supervisor. All of a sudden I was being paged to another floor; I went to help a fellow nurse. When I got there the nurse was waving a suction catheter around yelling that she forgot how to suction a tracheotomy. The patient was pale and scared. I took the catheter and got her out of the room, explained to the patient what I was to do,got a clean catheter hooked it up and suctioned him. This is what Cheaters do. I will never forget the look on that man's face.[/quote']
I agree about cheaters. They do the whole nursing career a disservice. They are also a threat to the patients. More then once in my career I have seen the absolute panic in their eyes. One evening stands out in my mind. I was working 3-11 shift and there was no supervisor. All of a sudden I was being paged to another floor; I went to help a fellow nurse. When I got there the nurse was waving a suction catheter around, yelling that she forgot how to suction a tracheotomy. The patient was pale and scared. I took the catheter and got her out of the room, explained to the patient what I was to do,got a clean catheter hooked it up and suctioned him. This is what Cheaters do. I will never forget the look on that man's face.
I agree about cheaters. They do the whole nursing career a disservice. They are also a threat to the patients. More then once in my career I have seen the absolute panic in their eyes. One evening stands out in my mind. I was working 3-11 shift and there was no supervisor. All of a sudden I was being paged to another floor; I went to help a fellow nurse. When I got there the nurse was waving a suction catheter around, yelling that she forgot how to suction a tracheotomy. The patient was pale and scared. I took the catheter and got her out of the room, explained to the patient what I was to do,got a clean catheter hooked it up and suctioned him. This is what Cheaters do. I will never forget the look on that man's face.
In my eyes, this story in no way depicts a cheater. It depicts someone who forgot how to do a skill they learned in nursing school. I doubt I would be able to recall 100% how to suction a trach right now without going back and looking it up (or as my instructor has us do, look at the instructions online before procedures). It shows someone who blanked in the heat of the moment. I hope that if/when this happens to me, I don't have to deal with another nurse who assumes I cheated my way through school because I happened to forget how to do something
I agree about cheaters. They do the whole nursing career a disservice. They are also a threat to the patients. More then once in my career I have seen the absolute panic in their eyes. One evening stands out in my mind. I was working 3-11 shift and there was no supervisor. All of a sudden I was being paged to another floor; I went to help a fellow nurse. When I got there the nurse was waving a suction catheter around yelling that she forgot how to suction a tracheotomy. The patient was pale and scared. I took the catheter and got her out of the room, explained to the patient what I was to do,got a clean catheter hooked it up and suctioned him. This is what Cheaters do. I will never forget the look on that man's face.[/quote']
Cheater because she didn't remember a skill? What a strange conclusion to draw....
Cheater because she didn't remember a skill? What a strange conclusion to draw....
I thought the same. I work very hard, and passed all my skills with flying colors. However I have yet to encounter a pt with a trach in the clinical setting, in the moment I am not sure I could perform that skill perfectly on the fly. That being said, what I do know, is that had I been assigned a pt with a trach, I would have been humble enough to admit I need to review a few things, and/or take an experienced nurse in with me to ensure I was doing it properly hopefully before I ended up standing there in shock.
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Liverloo
3 Posts
That's sad, I don't know why people do that to themselves, they don't seem to realize how much they are hurting their own education. I don't know how someone could even cheat on the TEAS though. You can't even bring anything in with you, or even leave the room to go to the bathroom! (or at least that's how mine was: no food, no drinks, no bathroom breaks. once you're in you don't leave until you're done). I don't get why you would even want to go to nursing school if you would have to put that much effort into cheating.